[SOLVED] New HDD making occasional clicking noise

[FirstLordDude]

I got a brand new HDD less than two weeks ago (a 2TB Seagate Barracuda 3.5" drive). Ever since I installed it, it's been making an occasional clicking noise. It will make the noise anywhere from one to three times in quick succession, and that's it. It'll sound just fine for a while. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. The clicking noise usually sounds like something moving one direction, then very quickly moving the opposite direction, ending with the click. I used Seagate's SeaTools for Windows, and the drive passed the tests. I checked the drive's SMART status using DiskMonitor (a program for Linux systems with the KDE Plasma desktop), and while I don't know how to fully understand the results, I was told by someone on a Discord that the results should be fine. But DiskMonitor has two of the results highlighted as warnings. I took a screenshot of the SMART results that are warned, if I'm allowed to post it.

https://imgur.com/a/vkPxWPu

View: https://imgur.com/a/vkPxWPu


Going by what I've read and some YouTube videos, the clicking I'm hearing may not be too bad. It's not rhythmic or anything. I just want to make sure it's okay. I've never had to deal with a faulty desktop drive before, and I hope my luck hasn't run out.

 

[fzabkar]

Those two highlighted attributes are OK. DiskMonitor appears to be unaware of Seagate's "non-standard" attribute behaviour.

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=89

Seagate SMART Attribute Specification:
http://t1.daumcdn.net/brunch/service/user/axm/file/zRYOdwPu3OMoKYmBOby1fEEQEbU.pdf

Normal SATA SMART Attribute Behavior (Seagate):
http://t1.daumcdn.net/brunch/service/user/axm/file/Vw3RJSZllYbDc86ssL6bofiL4r0.pdf

As for the clicking, some drives park their heads after an idle timeout. Seagate's drives also perform background media scans during idle periods. Other drives may perform "patrol seeks" to prevent the heads from flying over the same area for too long (to prevent "damage" to the surface lubricant, IIUC).

 

[FirstLordDude]

Ah. Okay. Thanks. I think I've exclusively dealt with WD drives in the past (at least the ones I've bought, and I don't pay attention to the brands that have come with my computers), so as far as I know this is my first Seagate. I don't think I've heard this sort of clicking in the past. I've had a cable box DVR drive go bad, and I think a PS3 drive was bad, but never my desktop drives.

Probably worth noting that my OS and most of my data is on the WD drive in my current desktop, whereas the Seagate only holds games so far. And I don't play PC games all the time, so this new drive hasn't had to access data very much. So the whole idle period thing makes sense.

Thanks again.

 

[fzabkar]

You can monitor the parking frequency by observing the Load/Unload Cycle Count in the SMART report. I'm not saying that the clicking is nothing to worry about, but I'm just pointing out possible benign causes.